We are donating the plant and shipping and handling to any destination in the continental United States.

You can buy raffle entries for $10. Your odds are at worst 1/100 because we will draw another raffle name for every 100 entries.

Alexis and Jim are stalwarts of the Florida orchid growing community. Jim is battling cancer. Here’s Jim and Alexis’s statement from their GoFundMe page:

In December, 2013, my young, vibrant husband and best friend, Jim, was diagnosed with colon cancer. There hasn’t been a moment gone by since that horrible day that cancer hasn’t lived in our home. For a short time, we thought the cancer had been beaten into remission, but it quickly came back. When it did, it was much more aggressive. It had metastasized to his liver, his abdomen, both lungs, and his lymph system.

We have battled this disease, and the financial burdens it brings with it, for nearly 5 years. Luckily, our health insurance has paid most of the medical bills; but the rising premiums, and out of pocket expenses have been more than we ever dreamed. All through these long years, full of debilitating chemo, radiation, and 16 surgeries, Jim has kept our landscape business afloat.

But Jim’s significantly diminished ability to keep our business producing at capacity over the past few years has tapped out every resource we once had. Our safety net has been spent keeping a roof over our head while income dwindled and expenses rose. Now Jim’s leg is swelling at an alarming rate, as the result of tumors in his groin lymph nodes. Walking is becoming uncomfortable; and soon, Jim will no longer be able to complete his physically-exhausting responsibilities to our customers. We are in the process of selling our business while it is still viable, but that will take many months or longer.

We don’t know what the next year holds for us, but we are not giving up our fight to beat this! Next week, because of the generosity of friends, Jim and I are able to travel to MD Anderson in Houston for a second opinion.

It is not easy for either of us to swallow our pride and ask for help, but that’s the position we find ourselves in now. If we could find the financial support to ease our burden and stress about paying the mortgage and health insurance, we could dedicate our energy to finding a way to heal Jim.

You buy raffle tickets. Each raffle ticket gets you an entry. We will print the names of every entrant and print them and put them in a hat. If you buy multiple tickets, you will get multiple entries. You must be located within the continental United States or have the plant shipped to someone in the continental United States. No international shipping or shipping to Hawaii. Sorry.

What are my odds?

That’s a good question and we’ve got good news. Your odds are at least as good as 1/100. If we get more than 100 raffle entries, we will draw two names and ship two plants. And so on, i.e., if we get 420 entries, we will draw five names and ship five plants.

What will I get?

You will get a large seedling/near blooming size Vanda Motes Purple Rain, the most desired vanda on the planet. Every time we have offered these plants they have sold out in under 18 hours. These plants are priced at $160 and that’s not a made up list price, that’s the price that we get for them. Every week we get emails from people begging us to sell them. We simply don’t have enough to sell. But we are reaching into our private stash this one time only to give you a chance to get this exotic, beautiful, unique plant for only $10.

When does the raffle end?

We will stop selling raffle tickets at midnight Pacific time on Saturday August 11, 2018.

The winner or winners will subsequently be emailed. Plant or plants will be shipped next week.

We will present a check to Alexis or a designated surrogate on Sunday August 12, 2018 for the entire value of the raffle entries. We will absorb the transaction fees. If Alexis cannot make it or send a surrogate, we mail Alexis and Jim a check on Monday.

In order to offer some of our very select plants, we created a new section on our website: the Private Collection. You can click here to check it out. This is where we will be offering very limited editions--such as seedlings that we may only have a dozen or less of, legacy plants when they become available, and larger size blooming vandas from limited edition lines of breeding.

If you are just starting your collection, you will likely find our other plants to make more sense. But for true connoisseurs, the Private Collection is where you'll find breathtaking treasures.

Dr. Motes wrote articles about then ascocentrum garayi and then ascocentrum ampullaceum for the American Orchid Society, which are available for free on our website by clicking here (garayi) and here (ampullacea) explaining why they deserve a spot in everyone's collection.